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Measuring our progress targets for the year 2010 : a report of

Measuring our progress targets for the year 2010 : a report of - Page 4

Targets
The North Carolina Progress Board ii
To the General Assembly and the people of North Carolina:
This is the first report of the North Carolina Progress Board. It has a simple and
powerful theme: We must build a better North Carolina in which prosperity is more widely
shared.
The Progress Board seeks to advance two purposes in this report. First, to identify and
encourage discussion of critical demographic, social, and economic trends that will bear upon
North Carolina’s future. Second, to issue the initial set of goals and targets to guide our
decision- making over the next decade.
Our task is to respond to the 1995 legislation creating this board and to build upon the
work of the Commission for a Competitive North Carolina. The commission’s report contained
39 suggested goals and 200 possible measurements. We have chosen to focus on four of the
commission’s recommended topics and to issue 16 major targets for the year 2010: targets
designed to drive us toward a more expansive vision of education and environmental protection,
toward strengthening families and bringing more people into the economic mainstream.
With an array of charts and graphs, we have enumerated additional targets and
indicators to help assess how well North Carolina is advancing toward its goals. There is more
work to be done in expanding the topics under discussion and in developing benchmarks by
which advancement can be tracked.
It is important to remember that the targets issued in this report are not just for state
government, but for our entire state, for all of us. It is also important to recognize that, while
these targets appear as individual items, they are interrelated. A quality education leads to a
prosperous economy; healthy families and children support educational achievement; a
sustainable environment contributes to a higher quality of life for families and children.
We know that some of our initial targets may seem, at first glance, out of reach. We
know that North Carolina is not immune to national and global forces that may present barriers
to our attaining our goals. But if we fail to be bold, we will not stretch ourselves to the ultimate.
Perhaps we won’t reach one target or another, but the greater failure will have been in not even
striving.
This report is not an end in itself, but rather a stage in a longer process. By setting up
the Progress Board, the legislative branch joined with the executive branch in a commitment to
establishing a vision for the future, setting clear goals, and measuring performance.
By dedicating ourselves to these tasks, North Carolina will solidify itself as a national
leader. More importantly, the prosperity that our state has so recently acquired through hard
work and critical choices will be expanded and shared by more and more of its citizens.

Targets
The North Carolina Progress Board ii
To the General Assembly and the people of North Carolina:
This is the first report of the North Carolina Progress Board. It has a simple and
powerful theme: We must build a better North Carolina in which prosperity is more widely
shared.
The Progress Board seeks to advance two purposes in this report. First, to identify and
encourage discussion of critical demographic, social, and economic trends that will bear upon
North Carolina’s future. Second, to issue the initial set of goals and targets to guide our
decision- making over the next decade.
Our task is to respond to the 1995 legislation creating this board and to build upon the
work of the Commission for a Competitive North Carolina. The commission’s report contained
39 suggested goals and 200 possible measurements. We have chosen to focus on four of the
commission’s recommended topics and to issue 16 major targets for the year 2010: targets
designed to drive us toward a more expansive vision of education and environmental protection,
toward strengthening families and bringing more people into the economic mainstream.
With an array of charts and graphs, we have enumerated additional targets and
indicators to help assess how well North Carolina is advancing toward its goals. There is more
work to be done in expanding the topics under discussion and in developing benchmarks by
which advancement can be tracked.
It is important to remember that the targets issued in this report are not just for state
government, but for our entire state, for all of us. It is also important to recognize that, while
these targets appear as individual items, they are interrelated. A quality education leads to a
prosperous economy; healthy families and children support educational achievement; a
sustainable environment contributes to a higher quality of life for families and children.
We know that some of our initial targets may seem, at first glance, out of reach. We
know that North Carolina is not immune to national and global forces that may present barriers
to our attaining our goals. But if we fail to be bold, we will not stretch ourselves to the ultimate.
Perhaps we won’t reach one target or another, but the greater failure will have been in not even
striving.
This report is not an end in itself, but rather a stage in a longer process. By setting up
the Progress Board, the legislative branch joined with the executive branch in a commitment to
establishing a vision for the future, setting clear goals, and measuring performance.
By dedicating ourselves to these tasks, North Carolina will solidify itself as a national
leader. More importantly, the prosperity that our state has so recently acquired through hard
work and critical choices will be expanded and shared by more and more of its citizens.